Monday, January 4, 2010

"Sew What?" Edition 2 Prologue

Plaid Jumper:

I am writing a prologue to this project simply because I started to work on it before I ever wrote about it. The pattern I am using I have had for a very long time. In fact it was one of the first vintage patterns I bought. I have "sort of" used it before on two seperate occations. Once I used the top part of the jumper and combined it with shorts to create a jumper playsuit. That playsuit is currently in my "need to finish" pile. Prior to that however, I used the skirt part of the jumper to make just a skirt. I didn't understand the glory of the side zipper yet, so I tried to give the skirt a back zipper making the skirt a complete disater. Plus my pleat was horrendous therefor making it unwearable. That is in my "need to redo" pile. Funny thing about the skirt that I made, I used the same material that I am using for the full jumper. Note that I didn't intentionally choose the fabric that matched the pattern art. I picked up the fabric on a whim knowing I would want to use it for "something".

I started on this project at the first sewing circle at Jenny's house. We had a great time there although the pattern did not cut itself out like I willed it too. I laid out the material and chatted away while I patiently waited for the pattern pieces to hop on the fabric and pin themselves, but alas they out waited me, so I disgruntly did it myself. Jenny showed me how to match up plaid patterns to give it a nice finish. I tried to trick her into doing the tedious pinning of the pattern for me, but she wouldn't do it. She kept saying, "No, you do it!" Her pattern weights did come in handy when laying out the pieces. So I ended up pinning and cutting out all the pieces and even though I brought my sewing machine, I was unable to use it before I had to head home.

Over the following weeks, I would sew a little bit here and there. Skirts are a breeze for me so I usually start with them and then make my way up to the top. I did an alright job on the front and back pleat, but I did better ones on the skirt for Sew What Edition 1 Chapter 1. I sewed as much on the top as I could, but then I got to the dreaded collar and couldn't go any further. So I patiently waited for the next sewing circle day at Jenny's. She'll know what to do!

That is where I will leave you for now. I will talk about chapter 1 in the next blog about this jumper.

2 comments:

Can sooo relate! I started a jumper quite sometime back too! Maybe we can drowned in our jumper sewing sorrows together. It is a complete nightmare for me to work with plaid and striped fabric. That, and sometimes the older patterns are so hard to read. Still working on it!